Welcome to the Warm Colors Apiary website. WCA produces and sells honey, pure beeswax candles, and products using honey and beeswax. We provide pollination services to local orchards and farms. Beekeepers can purchase queens and honeybees, and attend workshops in the Warm Colors bee yards. In other words, most activities involving honeybees happen at our apiary.

Warm Colors Apiary was founded in 2000 to produce regional honey from flowers in western Massachusetts. Located on eighty acres of woodland, open fields, and wetlands, the land provides a variety and abundance of nectar & pollen plants that bloom from early spring to late fall. Having a location with flowering plants blooming successively throughout the warm months makes our apiary ideal for honey production and the raising of honeybees.

Our mission is to develop, test and use beekeeping methods that improve the health of the honeybee. Through selective breeding, we endeavor to manage a sustainable apiary system that minimizes the use of harmful chemicals and employ the natural defenses and heritable behaviors shown to improve the honeybees mite tolerance and resistance to disease.

Our goals include raising honeybees capable of surviving the rigors of a New England winter and having the individual & social immunities to withstand the stresses associated with honeybee decline. Our work focuses on using the best available breeding stock, providing natural sources of forage and nutrition, and the early detection and prevention of disease and pests. Proactive management that reduces stress and the resulting problems, before they become too serious to correct, is our long-range goal.

We have sold out of package bees and Nucs for the 2019 season.

Thank you to everyone who ordered bees from WCA. We had an overwhelming number of package and Nuc orders for 2019. We did our best to distribute bees early, but the delays due to wet & cold weather, mating Queens, and slow brood development made it difficult stay on schedule. Bonita & I appreciate you may have been inconvenienced and were patient as we made adjustments in our pick up dates.  

Queens are now available for pick up at our South Deerfield, MA. apiary. No appointment is necessary, Queens can be picked up during open hours.

OPEN HOURS: Regular Apiary Hours are on Wednesday, Friday & Saturdays 10AM – 5PM.  Hours are subject to change. Please call 413-665-4513 and listen to our phone message for weekly updates.

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING DATES: We will be closed on the these days to participate in the following events:

Saturday June 1st – Participating in 10th Annual Bee Fest. Second Congregational Church, Greenfield, MA. Free and open to everyone as a celebration of Lorenzo Langstroth – the father of modern beekeeping. 9AM – 12 noon. Actor impersonator Mark Hoffman will portray Lorenzo Langstroth as he was in the 1830s. Awarding of the Bee Space – pollinator garden awards presented by Representative Natalie Blais.

Saturday June 15th – Presenting at the Massachusetts Beekeepers Association Field Day. UMASS Agricultural Center, Amherst, MA. 8:30AM – 4PM. Experienced beekeepers present demonstrations and workshops on best practices for managing honey bees. Over 30 workshop sessions scheduled. Free and open to all beekeepers.

September Saturday 7th – 12th (Re-open Friday 13) – Attending Apimondia, Montreal, Canada.

Workshop & Event dates now posted.

        Beekeeping can start young. Dan shows a future beekeeper the queen bee.

News:

• Dan Conlon interview on “Beekeeping Today”with Kim Flottum: Dan Conlon: It’s All About The Russians (Russian honey bees, that is)

• Warm Colors Apiary has received the 2018 “Local Hero Award” (farmer of the year) from CISA (Community Involved in Sustainable Agriculture) and a Congressional Award recognizing Warm Colors Apiary for our outstanding and invaluable service to the community from Congressman James McGovern. Bonita & I appreciate these honors from people and organizations we respect and support. CISA and Congressman McGovern promote nutrition, farms, and access to fresh foods for all Massachusetts residents. We share their philosophy that all people deserve fresh, nutritious food. We thank CISA and Congressman McGovern for their ongoing commitment to make local food available to all citizens.

Queen test yard #1 – 2018

For the Beekeepers

Warm Colors is no longer maintaining a large inventory of beekeeping equipment at our South Deerfield store. We will continue to sell a  limited amount of equipment (only items we use in our apiaries). As our apiary has grown so has the time required to maintain our bees, produce honey and provide service to our honey customers. Getting out of equipment sales allows more time for our beekeeping. The core of our business remains honey production & raising honey bees.

Knowledge + Management = healthy bees.